"Make people feel special. Making people realize you’re
paying attention to them is going to be increasingly important,
because I don’t think people feel very special anymore.
Instead of the classic model, like, here’s a Gap store
and here’s a thousand other Gap stores, we’ve really focused on
trying to make sure each of our New York stores feel really
special and jewel box. We want you to feel like there’s a reason
to go into the store. You were in the downtown store, but that
actually has slightly different product, has a different mood
than the uptown store.”

The key is differentiation. But in creating that, you can't make
a bunch of huge changes right away, she says, or you risk losing
your customer base: “You can’t do anything quickly. You kind of
have to go slow because you have a bunch of customers to get
there with you. You can’t flip on them because that can get
really confusing to people."

She says that problems are addressed really quickly, too — like
how when she complained J. Crew's cashmere products were terrible
years ago, Drexler simply said to "change it," and now the
company is known for its cashmere. As with any industry,
brilliant ideas go nowhere if there isn't good execution.